Field Reports

The crime goes by many names, but one thing that is certain–it is one of the most horrendous and baffling crimes in American history. Four bodies–one woman, and three little girls–found in two barrels years apart. It is later learned that three of the four victims are related. How does a family just disappear with no one looking for them?

I traveled to the crime scene and met with a citizen detective who has worked countless hours trying to crack the case, and also went to DC to meet with the forensic artist who is trying to give a face to the victims.

Behind the scenes

Walking into the NCMEC building in Virginia.

Walking the trail in Allenstown.

Using the original crime scene photos to line up where the bodies were found.

My Crime Watch Daily story on the park ranger who was shot nine times and left for dead in the hills of Utah, the fugitive who escaped authorities for five years, and the Eagle Scout and his teenage brother who used their skills to track him down.

When a loved one goes missing, family members contact local police, who create a case file. When human remains are discovered, another case file is created.

But here is the problem: Under the current system, these two files have no way of talking to each other. The information is spread across thousands of databases across the country, and families can search for years for their loved one who may have already been found.

Here is my Crime Watch Daily investigation on what some call the nation’s “Silent Mass Crisis.”

Caledonia Jane Doe,” or “Cali Doe,” was murdered in New York and remained unidentified for years. Here is the story I did for Crime Watch Daily on the unemployed accountant who helped give Cali Doe her true name back.

On September 11, 2014, 28-year old Zachary Hesse and his 27-year old boyfriend Andrew Haught were going out for pizza on a Thursday night in Philadelphia’s trendy Center City neighborhood. They walked past a group of about a dozen well-dressed males and females. Clean cut, preppy types. The women in dresses. The men in oxfords and polos, one in a loud orange vest.

There was bumping. According to testimony in the criminal case that followed, words were exchanged. “Is that your fucking boyfriend?!” one of the people in the large group yelled. “Yeah he is my fucking boyfriend. Do you have a problem with that?” replied Hesse. “So you’re a dirty, fucking faggot?” said one of the men. “Maybe I am a dirty, fucking faggot,” said Hesse.

Then it went haywire. The assailants allegedly yelled, “You dirty faggot!” as punches and kicks rained down on the two men. At one point, Hesse claimed his hands were held while a woman in a white dress scratched his face, yelling, “Fuck you faggot!”

Haught eventually passed out in a pool of his own blood.

Hesse and Haught spent the night at Hahnemann Hospital, Haught in surgery with two broken cheekbones, getting his jaw wired shut and patching up the deep lacerations on his face.

Police analyzed a video surveillance tape of the individuals they believed were part of the attack, but could not identify them. So they released the tape to the public. The case then morphed into one of the best examples to date of crowdsourcing leading to an arrest. And it was the Twitter relationship between a snarky sports blogger and a police detective that was one of the main keys to the tale…. Read the rest of the tale at Vocativ.

On Feb. 9, 2004, Maura Murray sent her professors at UMASS Amherst an email explaining that there was a death in her family and she would be gone for a few days. The 21-year old nursing student then walked out of her dorm room, purchased $35 worth of alcohol and drove her black Saturn into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She took a shaky turn on Rt. 112 in Haverhill and crashed her car into a snow bank. A passing motorist pulled up to the disabled car, and asked Maura if she needed help. She refused. Around fifteen minutes later, a police officer arrived at the scene and found the car locked, its windshield cracked, the airbags deployed—and not a soul in sight. In those fifteen minutes, Maura Murray had disappeared into the New Hampshire night.

Every day for the last ten years, each detail of the Maura Murray tale is analyzed, dissected and reconstructed with a Warren Commission-like attention to detail on blogs and online forums. The car accident two days earlier in Amherst. The father visiting with $4,000 cash in his pocket. The crying episode. The box of wine. The serial killer. The MapQuest print out. The school bus. The rag in the tailpipe. The sobbing voice mail. The clues are moved around the internet in a parlor game by armchair detectives, debated as either viable clues or vicious red herrings, along with the idea—the hope—that this may not be a crime at all, but rather an elaborate ruse by a young woman wanting to start a new life.

My feature on Johnny Lewis, the Sons of Anarchy actor who killed his landlady and then either fell or jumped from her home last September, was just posted on the Los Angeles Magazine website. You can read the story here.